Bama’s Lacy falls into Packers’ laps

Former Alabama running back Eddie Lacy steps over Notre Dame's Zeke Motta during the BCS National Championship game Jan. 7 at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.

By Bob McGinn
MCT News Service

GREEN BAY, Wis. — It will rank as one of the most hesitant draft choices that the Green Bay Packers have ever made.

One way or another, running back Eddie Lacy of Alabama became the newest Packer on Friday night with the 61st pick in the second round of the National Football League draft.

As Lacy plummeted deeper and deeper, you could almost hear the cries from the Green Bay faithful across the globe beseeching general Ted Thompson to trade up and nab him.

Not only didn’t Thompson aggressively pursue Lacy, he almost did the unthinkable by trading away the No. 55 choice to San Francisco for No. 61 and an additional sixth-round selection.

If the Packers were trying to run away from Lacy, the talented but brittle fourth-year junior, they couldn’t do it. When nobody would take them off the hook, it was almost as if the Packers threw up their hands and turned in the Lacy card.

They got a player that was the unanimous choice of 16 NFL personnel people in a Journal Sentinel poll as the best back in the draft.

At the same time, the Packers violated their deadly serious organizational initiative to curb injuries in 2013 after being decimated twice in the past 3 years.

“We feel pretty good about it,” Thompson said of Lacy’s almost endless history of injury. “I think it could have been one of the reasons he wasn’t drafted earlier by other teams.”